Spinach Masiyal

Fresh leafy greens of various kinds are abundantly available in my home State. Each one has its own unique medicinal properties and rich nutritional content that special dishes have been dedicated to them. However, our style of cooking is pretty bad at coming up with salads - there are a few of course, but for the most part it is considered insulting to munch on uncooked leaves. So they are cooked until they wilt, and are spiced until their original taste hides behind a dozen other taste sensations. Still.... despite knowing all this, I would any day prefer such a masiyal (a paste) to a plate full of spinach leaves dressed with a light vinaigrette. My taste buds are spoilt so.

This is my own mish-mash of a spinach masiyal. 90% of it is my grandmother’s and mother’s recipe, but I updated those things that my mother wouldn’t - such as adding the infamous garlic.

Ingredients:

1. 5-6 cups of spinach leaves (remember spinach wilts down to nothing when cooked)
2. 2 green chillies (or more if you’d like)
3. ¼ cup of water
4. ½ teaspoon salt
5. 4 garlic cloves
6. 2 inch strip of tamarind
7. ½ - ¾ teaspoon of jaggery or brown sugar
8. ¼ teaspoon sambar powder or curry powder (optional)
9. 1 teaspoon rice flour
10. ½ teaspoon of mustard seeds
11. ½ teaspoon of split urad dhal / ulutham paruppu
12. 2 dry red chillies
13. 1 teaspoon of oil

Preparation:

1. Crush the garlic cloves and green chillies to make a sort of paste. I use the mortar and pestle to roughly crush and combine the two.
2. Extract the juice of the tamarind strip. Soak it in a little bit of hot water and squeeze out the juice. The juice wouldn’t be more than ½ cup.
3. Cut the spinach leaves and cook them with ¼ cup of water, salt, and the garlic+green chillies paste. Periodically check on the spinach leaves and add a bit of water if needed. Cook on medium heat.
4. When the spinach wilts and cooks, add the tamarind juice, some sambar powder (optional), and brown sugar/jaggery and cook for 10 minutes or so until the raw smell of tamarind dissipates.
5. If the masiyal is watery, thicken it by dissolving 1 teaspoon of rice flour in 1-2 teaspoons of water and adding it to the masiyal. This is a technique used to thicken gravies. Allow the masiyal to cook for 5-10 minutes until it thickens. When it does, remove from heat.
6. Heat a bit of oil. Splutter mustard seeds. Add urad dhal and red chillies, fry for a few seconds, and add the garnish to the masiyal.

That’s it. This recipe has hardly any oil. If you would like it to be a tad more healthier, skip the tamarind and go easy on the spices/chillies. But if you need to coax a fussy eater into having spinach, this is a good dish to try. It can be had as is, can be mixed with steamed rice, or had as a side-dish.

Some people grind/crush the spinach to a smooth paste after it cooks. I personally don’t like the masiyal to resemble baby food, so I skip the crushing/grinding.

As always, you can be creative and add onions and tomatoes along with the spinach. It will turn into a lovely sabzi.